The Joy of a Well Executed Ballpark Promotion

The Blue Jays may be looking for ways to draw in extra attendees over the next couple of seasons during this retooling phase, and I’d like to suggest looking no further than a cleverly executed promotional weekend. The team has been more creative with some of their promotional items recently, so why not go all out and offer an all out themed weekend?

When I visited Anaheim Stadium earlier this year to see the Blue Jays play, the Angels made summer the most wonderful time of the year with a “Christmas in June” weekend event. If the Mike Trout nutcracker giveaway wasn’t rewarding enough, a combination of well thought out features made the whole weekend absolutely delightful.

One of the key components to a successful Christmas is decorations, and there were no shortage of them at Angel Stadium. A giant, decorated tree sat outside the main entrance, and big red bows were around every corner. Christmas carolers dressed in their finest seasonal attire filled the air with familiar holiday tunes.

photo by the author

Icicles adorned the scoreboards, and all your favorite Christmas tunes were blasted between innings. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” played during the kiss cam segment.

The first pitch was thrown out by none other than Santa Claus and two of his reindeer. The reindeer stayed around for most of the game in a pen on the ballpark grounds for anyone who wanted to visit them up close.

Photo by the author

The highlight of the whole weekend may have been the cards that appeared on the main scoreboard during each player’s first at bat, for they had been mercilessly photoshopped into Christmas classics.

Saturday night’s game ended with a fireworks show that was set (of course) to Christmas music. Even though warm Christmases aren’t foreign to us Southern California dwellers, the strangeness of experiencing everything Christmas in the middle of Summer was an absolute blast.

The whole Christmas in June weekend didn’t look to be all that costly, and the Jays appear to already have a ton of these decorations for Winter Fest, so why not try it out? The success of Winter Fest last year should demonstrate there’s a strong market for family fun even in the midst of a non-competitive season, so it would be lovely to see more experimentation with these types of events.

Which promotions would you like to see the Blue Jays offer in the future?